Monday, January 30, 2006

Miracle for the Cause of John Paul II?

VATICAN CITY, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The Vatican may have found the "miracle" they need to put the late Pope John Paul one step closer to sainthood -- the medically inexplicable healing of a French nun with the same Parkinson's disease that afflicted him. Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Catholic Church official in charge of promoting the cause to declare the late Pope a saint of the Church, told Reuters on Monday that an investigation into the healing had cleared an initial probe by doctors.Oder said the "relatively young" nun, whom he said he could not identify for now, was inexplicably cured of Parkinson's after praying to John Paul after his death last April 2."I was moved," Oder said in a telephone interview. "To think that this was the same illness that destroyed the Holy Father and it also kept this poor nun from carrying out her work."John Paul suffered from Parkinson's Disease during the last decade of his life. His body trembled violently and he could not pronounce his words or control his facial muscles."To me, this is another sign of God's creativity," he said, adding that the nun worked with children.He said Church investigators would now start a more formal and detailed probe of the suspected miracle cure.(snip)He said his office had also received many letters and e-mails from people claiming they had been miraculously cured or otherwise helped with a serious problem after praying to the Pope even while he was alive.But under Church rules, only those "miracles" which occurred after the Pope's death can be investigated and eventually used as proof of holiness.

It should be noted that a Cardinal is amongst those who claim to have received miraculous healing on the intercession of Pope John Paul II while he was still alive.